


Fucked For Life

by toejamfootball



Category: Shameless (TV), Shameless (US)
Genre: M/M, Mickey Milkovich tells the truth by lying, You're nothing but a warm mouth to me, because he's a liar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-02
Updated: 2012-04-02
Packaged: 2017-11-02 23:09:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/374394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toejamfootball/pseuds/toejamfootball
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ian visits Mickey in juvie</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fucked For Life

“Thanks for not killing Frank.”

“I didn’t do it for you.” The lie is as much truth as truth has ever been.

“I know,” he says and you wonder if he really means that. You hardly know yourself. How could he?

“Good. Don’t want you getting no ideas,” you mutter. You don’t want to look him in the eyes, so you look everywhere else. You look to the side, to the other guys locked up on this side of the glass; you look past Ian’s shoulder; you look down, and then up and skim over his cheekbones because if you stop now then you might not be able to look away again. 

“Like what?” He presses because he’s a smartass that likes to talk.

“Ideas like I don’t mean what I said back at that shithole,” you say. “Because I do.”

Ian’s staring at you, and you know it even though you’re not staring at him. You can feel the heat of his gaze burning into you and it makes you itch all over. 

“Frank didn’t talk,” he says after a moment, like he just remembered how to talk.

“Yet,” you correct him, and that’s a truth. Frank has got to have the biggest mouth in Chicago. Give him enough time and he’ll talk, like he forgets the shit he’s saying’s supposed to be a secret.

“He’s not going to talk,” Ian says. Bullshit.

“Are you really that stupid?” You ask him in a low voice and that shuts him up real fast. “He can’t keep his own secrets and you think he’s gonna keep ours? What fucking world -”

“-Do I live in, yeah I heard you the first time,” Ian interrupts. “I don’t think he’s going to talk.”

“Yeah, and if he does?” You demand because you can’t stop thinking about what would happen if he did tell. It was a stupid, irrational decision to fuck there. You should’ve just kept it to baseball fields and abandoned houses and bathrooms, in the dark of the night. You should’ve thought this out. You should have been more careful, but you’ve never been too good at caring.

“What are you going to do, Mick? Stay in there forever? Get locked up in prison for the rest of your ife? That the life you’re so desperate to protect?”

“It’s better’n getting my head bashed in,” you snap because he’s wrong, it is better. You don’t want to die yet. You don’t even want to deal with the face your dad will make when he finds out you like taking it up the ass. It’s not embarrassment, it’s not shame, it’s fear. Unadulterated terror that is so hot you can feel it burning you up from the inside out.

“You’re already dead,” he grinds out through his teeth. You’re irritating him because you’re not getting it, you know that. He makes that face sometimes, you get it. “Living inside a cage isn’t living, Mickey.”

“If you’re a rat it is," you snap back because you don’t think he’s getting it either.

“Are you a rat?” He asks and you feel like punching him because he’s so fucking clueless. Of course you’re a rat. You deserve to be locked up, kept away from the normal people. People like you belong in cages - you feel normal here. You feel safe in the midst of all this violence.

“I don’t know, maybe,” you say irritably because he’s irritating the fuck out of you. You want him to fuck off, but you’re scared that when he does you’ll be entirely alone.

“You’re not a rat,” Ian says quietly and he’s still staring at you, but you haven’t looked at him in a long time. You don’t want to; it hurts too much, mostly because every time you look away it feels a lot like sucking in air through a straw, until your lungs burn because can’t ever get enough air.

“How would you know,” you ask, sounding only half as breathless as you feel.

“I don’t fuck rats,” he says without missing a beat and you look at him. Your eyes latch onto him, like you’re scared he’s going to disappear on you if you blink.

“What are you even doing here, Gallagher?” You ask, sounding entirely breathless this time.

“I wanted to thank you for not killing Frank,” he says.

“That couldn’t wait?” You challenge him, staring at him now, but he doesn’t look away. His eyes are like hot plates, and you want to pull away but your flesh is already melted to him. Pulling away only makes it hurt more. You feel like screaming.

“I wanted to see you,” he reiterates, dropping his gaze for a second before meeting your eyes again. He may have cut his hair, but he still makes the same damn face: sheepish, boyish, uncertain like he doesn’t know damn well what he’s doing.

“Why?” You ask and it’s the most honest question you’ve ever asked anyone.

“I don’t know? Because I like your face; I wanted to make sure it was still intact, at least they made you get rid of that moldy carpet growing on your face. I miss you.” He follows the insult so quickly with that stupid line, those three stupid three words, you almost don’t hear them.

“Fuck off,” you scoff but you want to ask him why again because you really want to know.

Ian’s quiet for a moment, but he’s still staring at you and you want to tell him to cut it out, to leave some of you left. His gaze is so hot, you think you might all melt away if he doesn’t stop it. He will stare you into nothing and you think maybe you’d be alright with that, because you’re nothing already. Ian is the only one who sees anything in you and if he wants, he can take that anything away with him. You won’t mind because you’re positive it doesn’t even exist in the first place. 

“Frank’s not going to talk, Mickey. We don’t have to... We don’t have to stop anything - it’s not -”

“No,” you cut him off abruptly. “Look, we got too comfortable before, we starting thinking it was normal. We forgot our place, Gallagher.” You have no fucking clue what you’re even talking about. “We got too careless, I get it - I won’t let that happen again. It was just a fuck, alright? We were just fucking. We’re done with that. It’s over.”

You drop your voice lower and say, “he’ll talk eventually. And when he does, I’ll be in here.”

“you can’t hide in there forever,” Ian says, his voice just as low as yours, his face just as serious.

“Watch me.”

Ian makes a frustrated sound and looks like he might cry for a second there. You hope he doesn’t. You’ve never seen him cry. “You’re being a coward.”

“I don’t give a fuck.” And you really mean it. You really don’t give a fuck; the terror has got that tight a hold on you. It’s like a noose, tightening around your throat and you can hardly breathe anymore without feeling the rope dig deeper into your jugular. “I’m doing this for you too, Gallagher,” you relent because you want to wipe that stupid look off his face.

“If Frank talks, I’m going to be out here,” Ian points out, slowly, like he doesn’t even get what you’re going on about. He never does. It feels like you never get anything, like you’re having two different conversations, two different relationships and you’re only pretending to understand each other when the other person is looking. “You’re not doing shit to protect me.”

“You’re not the one who’s going to be needing protection," you tell him, trying to say it slow, because maybe he’ll understand it better that way.

“Your dad isn’t going to want my head on a platter when he finds out what we’ve been doing this whole time?” Ian asks, and you feel like punching him again and telling him to pay a-fucking-ttention this time.

“Are we watching the same show here, Gallagher? You can defend yourself. Nobody’s gonna chop your head off and put it on a platter. You won’t let them. Am I speaking English? For Fuck’s sake.” He stops and looks at you again and you don’t know what you said wrong that’s got him looking that way, like he’s seeing you for the first time.

He doesn’t say anything after that and you figure you won that argument, even if you can’t remember what you were arguing about. The first one to shut up loses, that’s always been how arguments work in your family. “Are you going to fuck off now?” You ask, changing the subject but remaining entirely on point.

“Yeah,” he agrees.

“Are you gonna stay gone?”

“Do you want me to?”

You look away again, you look off to the side, taking in the other guys sitting beside you. An entire row of guys locked in here with you. You know them all by name and you’ve known them all for a while. They’re citizens of this neighborhood of yours too; repeat offenders; idiots who call imprisonment home, just like you. “I don’t know,” you say again because admitting ignorance is better than uttering another truth. It’s always better to lie. You always feel more honest when you lie.

“Are you going to change your mind?” He asks you and you don’t have to ask him what the fuck he’s talking about because you know. Sometimes he does this, with the half questions and abrupt topic changes, like he thinks you can read his mind, and sometimes you can.

“No,” and it tastes like a lie but you really wish it didn’t. You really want to stop this. He’s too dangerous. He’s too involved. He’s a Gallagher and too many people have caught you fucking him. Too many people know. If you had it your way, even Ian wouldn’t know, because the only way to protect a secret is to tell no one and to kill the witnesses but you’re too pussy to even do that. You belong in here. You deserve nowhere else.

“Then I’ll be back next week,” he says and you want to ask him why again. Why bother? What is the point? You did this to yourself. To him. Why doesn’t he just move the fuck on and take whatever he sees in you with him, because it’s not like you’re going to use that shit anyway.

“You don’t have to,” you say instead of asking why because asking why always feels like you’re exposing too much of yourself. It’s a vulnerable question, the most vulnerable one you can ask. It makes you feel naked and dirty at the same time, and not in a good way.

“I know,” he says and hangs up the phone. He walks away from you with the confidence of someone who knows they’ll be returning and you want to tell him to stop it. To stop taking that confidence in you. You want to tell him that you don’t want him. You want to throw him away, to drive that wedge in between you because if there isn’t a wedge, then whatever he is is just going to continue growing closer, like mold. He’s going to grow on you until you can’t scrub him off. No matter how savagely you scrub, he will never be off of you and that terrifies you. It terrifies you more than your dad, and more than Frank running his mouth, and more than dying and you don’t know what to do about it because every time you hurt him, you can’t breathe. You feel that noose tightening around your throat, and you're scared that when you finally tear him from your body, you're going to end up hanging yourself.


End file.
